Civ: Kentuckians
with caravan rehoming
Won in March 1863 (Wiped out the Union, the Rebel and the Indians).
Strategy:
Important: do not load your saved game in July 1861. This strategy relis on AI civs not rush building units in the first two turns (so that you can occupy empty cities). If you reload, the AI civs will adjust their strategies and their cities will have defenders one turn earlier than usual.
July 1861, Met the Union to let it declare war. Moved the militia of Louisville out to occupy Indianapolis (empty city). Moved another militia to Louisville(3/4 chance) and disbanded it to rush build a C raider in Louisville..
Aug 1861, C raider occupied Columbus and Cleveland, militia occupied Chicago. Rejected cease fire offer from the Union. Rush built C raiders in cities and rush built a block runner in Cleveland(sold all libraries even banks in some cities).
Sept 1861, militia occupied milwaukee and madison, C raider from cleveland on block runner occupied Buffalo and Syracuse, C raider from Louisville occupied terra haute and fort wayne. Gave a tech 'Dixie land' to the Union and signed a peace treaty (with the tech the Union could not build advanced infantry. I was wondering why it kept asking for it). Met the Rebel, rejected peace offer. C raider from Paducah attacked Nashville and another C raider occupied the empty city as well as Chattanooga and Knoxville. Paid 150 gold and signed a peace treaty with the Rebel.
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From then on, sold city improvements in occupied cities to get cash and built some engineers (30+) then built cotton traders. Celebrated Louisville to maximum size and rehomed cotton traders to the city, traded with New York (Engineers built RRs towards NY from Syracuse). Rush bought the HG wonder for 800 golds to make celebration easier.
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June 1862 discovered the tech for advanced infantry (could be one turn ealier but I wonder if that makes any difference since I would not have enough money to buy enough units for attacking in June).
July 1862 declared war on the Union. First attacked New England and occupied 5 cities there. From then on cotton traders would be delivered to Halifax, 2.5 times bonus compared to New York.
Oct 1862: Union down to 5 cities, declared war on the Rebel.
Dec 1862: Union destroyed. Advanced infantry outpaced engineers' speed of building RRs. Should have built more engineers earlier.
Feb 1863: Although I rush build Engineers in all cities for the past two turns, I was still about 5 Engineers short for finishing the Rebels. At this late I simply used engineers to put down cities whenever possible instead of building RRs everywhere. Rebel had only one city left and the Indians was gone. Interestingly, Julia Ward Howe was singing for the Union soldiers. Were they hiding in caves?
March 1863: not much to say. The Rebel finally offered all money and techs for a cease fire, which of course was too late.
I used mouse drag togo command to move my 100 units around the map via RRs. A lot faster than keyboard however sometimes I moved too fast and my units went out of the RR into wild. My right hand is still sour. This mouse trick works this way: you wake up units near Chicago and use mouse to drag on the map, stop at Chicago and release. After the first unit is done you sensor it. Now another unit in the nearby area will be activated. If you zoom out your map a little bit the map won't change location so your mouse is still above Chicago. You just move the mouse a little bit then drag again. Soon all nearby units will be in Chicago. Do this to all areas so that all units to be moved will be grouped together at several places. Then you start to gather them together by moving the stacks: you wake up all units in Chicago, then drag the mouse to Indianapolis. Once your mouse is above Indianapolis, you keep the mouse there and do drag, sensor, drag, sensor.... I prefer non-city squares for gathering troops since I can un-sensor units easily. I also use multiple squares which are close to one another: move to the next square if a stack reaches 9 units so that I can wake them all at once.